dw_biz | Icons: how much is "enough"?

Since icons are one of the more popular things we offer, a major driver of paid accounts, and something that people often request ("more icons" is one of the most frequent suggestions), I'm curious as to what people would consider "enough" icon slots. I'm setting the low end of this poll at 250, which is the most available (premium paid/seed accounts) in any account offered now; please answer the point at which you'd feel you had 'enough' icon slots, however you define that:

Poll #1847

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 856

View Respondents

How many icon slots would be enough to suit you?

View Answers

Up to 250
477 (55.7%)

251-300
77 (9.0%)

301-350
14 (1.6%)

351-400
13 (1.5%)

401-450
2 (0.2%)

451-500
168 (19.6%)

501-600
28 (3.3%)

601-700
3 (0.4%)

701-800
2 (0.2%)

801-900
0 (0.0%)

901-1000
48 (5.6%)

1001-1200
8 (0.9%)

1201-1400
0 (0.0%)

1401-1600
0 (0.0%)

1601-1800
0 (0.0%)

1801-2000
2 (0.2%)

2001-2200
0 (0.0%)

2201-2400
0 (0.0%)

2401-2600
1 (0.1%)

2601-2800
0 (0.0%)

2801-3000
0 (0.0%)

3001-3500
2 (0.2%)

3501-4000
0 (0.0%)

4001-4500
0 (0.0%)

4501-5000
1 (0.1%)

5001-5500
0 (0.0%)

5501-6000
0 (0.0%)

6001-6500
0 (0.0%)

6501-7000
0 (0.0%)

7001-7500
0 (0.0%)

7501-8000
0 (0.0%)

8001-10,000
0 (0.0%)

More than 10,000
10 (1.2%)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Are there statistics available on how many icons we're using now?

It would be interesting to see how many accounts are maxed out on slots right now, broken down by account type.

Not that more icons would be bad if only a small percentage of users were going to take advantage--I imagine it would be huge to those users who'd actually use it--I'm just really nosy and interested in seeing how the current limits are working out for people in practice.

I don't actually have that information! I should get Mark to see if he can pull it.

That would be really cool data to see.

I personally have about 100 icons on LJ, and only use about half of them with any regularity.

That would be really cool info to see. I have a feeling that even those people who have every single icon slot filled most only use a small portion of those with any regularity. It'd be awesome to see what the percentage of usage is vs. total number of icons uploaded.

I think part of that is a question of how people use icons.

Personally, I treat icons like I treat my closet. If I'm not using it much, I'll probably swap it out at my next file upload. The most important thing to me is having enough slots that I can maintain a good balance of "moods" and subjects so that I feel like I've got an apropos icon for the bulk of my posts and comments. I've got 36 right now, and I'm about ready to do an icon overhaul that will probably bring it down to ~25, once I've finished swapping and streamlining.

There are other people who use their icon page as a display space, either for their own icons or because they collect icons the way that some people collect buttons and bumper stickers. Even if they might never use a particular one on a comment or entry, they want it there for people to see. I can understand those people wanting more icon slots than I myself have use for.

There are also people who upload icons that they only mean to use once or twice, and they want to keep those uploaded because they want the icon to stay with the entry or comment it was made for. For those people, it's important to have enough icon slots to continue to store all these "special occasion" icons.

Then there's roleplayers, who want icon sets for all their characters, and might want to keep the icons after they've finished a particular RP to maintain the integrity of its archives.

I imagine there are other usages I've not stumbled across/noticed yet.

So I can see how people who aren't using all their icons for current posts and comments might still want more of them.

That said, from both a business and technical perspective (and a community perspective for that matter), it might be useful to have solid numbers on how people are using the slots they've got. Plus I'm nosy and like population statistics.

It sounds like a lot of what people actually are wanting in some cases is just to keep icons on old posts, which I can wholeheartedly support just from the number of times I've run across comments about icons that obviously referred to no-longer-extant icons. But maybe that option would be trickier than just having massive icon limits. Or maybe it could be included with that image gallery idea when it gets up and running?

I'm not a big user, so this post is basically reminding me to go check and see - oh, I have 15 icon spaces now instead of 6! And I'm only using 4! I'll have to remember to go icon-hunting . . .

I agree that there should be an option to be able to keep old icons on old posts or comments, but no longer use them on new content, so you can grow and evolve your icon base without modifying the past content.

Like maybe "Active Icons" and "Archived Icons" as two separate sections, where you can "Archive" an icon to make room for something new. And perhaps an option to pay for to move an icon back out of the "Archive" to being active.

I know I don't have all my icons loaded yet, but not because I don't WANT to. I have arthritis and by the time I've pounded on my computer at work all day, uploading goes a little more slowly. I'm working on it, though! :D

Icons: how much is "enough"?

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